December 12, 2002

Dilulio and Hatfield: A Study in Terror

Adam Joyce wrote a piece in The Spleen in
which he discusses J.H. Hatfield, author of Fortunate Son: The Making of an American President,
in light of the recent incident with former Bush adviser John Dilulio. I had made the same
connection when I read about Dilulio, so I couldn't help writing a note to Adam Joyce. Here is
the letter.

Dear Adam,

I read your piece on Hatfield with fascination. I had also made the connection between Dilulio and
Hatfield. I was at the Book Expo with Sander Hicks and Jim Hatfield in Chicago in June 2001 when the
second paperback edition of Fortunate Son was introduced. It was done with a press
conference in which Sander revealed Jim's sources about the cocaine allegations, including Karl
Rove and Clay ... (I forget his name now, I'm in Vancouver, B.C. away from all my stuff) and a
minister who knew the family.

I wrote a postscript for that edition of the book at Jim's insistence. He and I had become
close after I reviewed his book for American Book Review and it was one of the few sympathetic
reviews he got. We started e-mailing each other and it developed into a few-times-a-day thing
for the last nine months of his life or so.

I also said a few words at the press conference Sander called to introduce the new book and
announce that he was revealing Jim's sources. Jim also spoke to the press people who came to
the conference. They were very hostile to him. The viciousness of their attacks seemed inappropriate to the situation to me, but that just shows how far from the mainstream my
thinking is. To me he was to be applauded for writing a very informative and readable biography
of Bush when almost no one had the guts go beyond Bush's PR material. The book was much
more sympathetic to Bush than I could ever have been. It actually induced some empathy in me
for Bush for the first time ever. I had only felt loathing for him up to that time.

After the press conference Jim and I went and had a beer together. I found the whole situation
quite frightening. The hostility of the press was really unsettling considering the fact that
the proper role of the press, in my mind, is to challenge those in power. But instead they were
acting like Bush's armed guards. All their critical facility was aimed at the author of the
book and no consideration was given to the questions raised in the book about Bush's character
or his qualifications for president, which seemed to me to be the relevant subject in an
election, but was avoided almost totally by the media.

After Sander had revealed Karl Rove as a source who snitched on his buddy George, and Jim had
in fact affirmed it when the press asked him, they had effectively doublecrossed Rove and
confronted some of the most powerful and vicious people in the world. I was there with them at
the press conference and I found the whole thing terrifying. I had read enough about the Bush
family to know they were nothing like their public image. To me they were not to be trifled
with.

I sat there with Jim in the aftermath of the press conference and he too, I could see, was
afraid. I was just a bystander, but Jim was in the spotlight. He had nowhere to hide. And since
Sander had outed him, so to speak, had induced him to doublecross Rove (or at least to accuse
Rove, depending on whether you believe Hatfield or don't, as most of the press didn't) he was more in the line of fire than ever.

He had been a great friend to me in the months I had known him and I had told him so. At that
moment, he reminded me of my declarations of friendship in the past and in effect asked me
not to abandon him now. As I sat across from him and he put his hand on my arm with a pleading
look, he looked terribly vulnerable to me, one small man against the massive power of the Bush
machine. I had enough proximity to his situation in that moment to get a sense of the burden
under which he labored since the book came out and his own criminal record had come out and
become a major scandal.

He had told me that Clay whats-his-name had threatened Jim's wife and child by name over the
phone to try to intimidate Jim to withdraw the book. And that was before Clay's name had
been made public as a source. About a month and a half after that press conference, Jim was dead.

I had some phone calls from him after our meeting in Chicago in which he had wanted to talk to me about his
troubles, but he was a little vague about it all. I obviously underestimated the seriousness of
the situation. Then several of his friends got an e-mail from his wife -- although some think
Jim sent it himself under her name -- describing a breakdown he had had, which had been the
catalyst for committing him to a rehab center. When he was in the institution, my email
correspondence with him stopped because he was supposedly not with his computer. I had some exchanges with his wife by e-mail. She said he was doing
well. Then suddenly one day someone forwarded the story to me that he had committed suicide.

I think he was terrified, harassed, worn down, shamed. He obviously had a weakness in his
criminal record and that was used to hammer him until he just caved in. His in-laws had not
known of his criminal past, so when the whole thing came out, he was shamed and essentially
destroyed. At least that was how he saw it. One day he was on the verge of a successful writing
career with his deal with St. Martin, and then he descended to hell.

Linda Starr said, "Even a chicken can peck you to death. I think the Bush administration pecked
him to death."

When I read the Dilulio stuff, I thought of Jim too. So when I saw your article, I couldn't
resist writing.